A ridiculously-named molecule, about which I know virtually nothing, although I'm told it's quite smelly and may be used as a vapour phase polymerisation inhibitor. It got its name from the Latin "furfur", meaning "bran" (the source of the compound). A related molecule, furfural alcohol is apparently used in the fabrication process of the Reinforced Carbon-Carbon (RCC) sections used in the space shuttle.

Fortune Clutterbuck wrote:I once knew a woman called "Odecia Pilgrim" which would make a lovely name for a discworld character.Also the president of NIgeria "Goodluck Johnson" sounds like he ought to be a relative of a certain discworld architect

Tonyblack wrote:Going back to Praise-God Barebone - we found this reference to him. Reading the early paragraphs, he sounds very much like a Discworld character who was selected to take over from Vetinary in The Truth.

At the age of 27, in 1623, Barebone was admitted as a freeman to the Leathersellers Company of London, and in 1634 as a liveryman. While he attended to the stock and trade common to the broad functional demands made on leather in his time, his substantial property and comfort came from his successes in purveying assorted harnesses and unexpected devices (to be worn by people of a particular inclination) crafted of leather in the service of a certain aesthetic

Did you read the Disclaimer? That noticeable rectangle at the top left of the page? It basically says that the whole thing is fiction.

My ex-wife's father (my ex-father-in-law?) taught a girl in school who's first name was Lasagne

A wonderful Roundworld placename, which could easily be a Discworld location, is Head-Smashed-in-Buffalo-Jump, in Alberta, Canada, which I visited a few years back.

A few hundred years ago, before the introduction of the horse to North America, the native peoples (the Indians) would hunt buffalo on foot. In one region, near the foothills of the Rockies in Canada, in an area called the Porcupine Hills, where the geography is so flat you can actually see the curvature of the Earth, Indians would creep up on vast herds on buffalo in the night. Disguised in buffalo hides, they would get as close as possible to the edges of the herd. At dawn, they would jump up and start yelling and whooping, causing the herd to stampede. The stampede would be directed towards a small cliff, only around 15ft high, by channeling it down a carefully prepared series of shrubs and bushes, which narrowed as it got closer to the edge. By the time the lead buffaloes realised what was in front of them, they had the weight of thousands, and in some cases, tens of thousands, of other stampeding buffalo at their backs, and hundreds would fall over the edge, where the waiting braves would slaughter them and take all they needed.

According to legend, one young brave, 15 summers old, decided that it would be very brave of him to watch from underneath as the buffalo fell. There is a small outcrop of rock in the cliff, and he thought he would be safe standing under there. He was wrong. As the hundreds of buffalo fell, and gathered in a huge pile, they fell back into the cliff side. Several hundred tons of dead and dying buffalo fell against the young brave, crushing him to death and crushing his skull, hence - Head-smashed-in-buffalo-jump. A very sad, but utterly fascinating reason for naming an otherwise fairly innocuous piece of geography.

I went to high school with a boy whose last name was something like Ewecszdiszebius. The spelling is probably wrong but I know exactly how it is pronounced, because he started signing his name FXDZBS.There was a US Congressman from Texas named Barefoot Sanders.The actress Soleil Moon Frye.OOh! I almost forgot! Someone in my ancestry who was called Deadbox Birch. A Discworld undertaker, maybe?

I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be.--Douglas Adams